Page 22 of Outlaw Ridge: Hayes

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Hayes had one big-assed thought going through his mind.

He’d failed.

Well, mostly.

Jemma was alive and unharmed, and that was huge. Added to that, one of their attackers was dead. But the other, the sonofabitch sniper, had escaped.

And that fell firmly in the failure category.

Jemma and he had searched for him for well over an hour. Combing through those woods, looking for any signs of him. They hadn’t found squat, which meant they now had exactly that—squat.

If he’d managed to catch that asshole alive, then they might have answers as to who’d orchestrated this attack. But because the guy was in the wind, those answers weren’t going to be coming from him.

Not from his dead comrade either.

Once they had an ID on him, that might give them something. But that could take a while, what with every CSI and forensic tech already tied up with this shitstorm investigation.

Hayes finished up his call with Ruby, a multitasked conversation so he could fill her on what had just happened and also so he could find out Owen’s condition. And the status of thesecurity worker who’d been shot. At least those last two updates were good news.

Well, good-ish anyway.

The worker had been shot in the stomach, but he’d been transported to the much bigger hospital in San Antonio and was in stable condition after surgery. Bottom line, he’d live, and despite the sheer number of bullets that had been fired, he was the only one of their team to have been shot in that particular attack.

There was some good-ish news about Owen, too. He had no serious damage from the wound to his shoulder and would be returning to duty at the inn. Of course, he probably shouldn’t be coming back this soon, but Hayes was going to let Ruby try to convince the man of that.

Hayes put away his phone, automatically scanning the dining room/office for Jemma. She, too, was finishing up a call. In fact, so were Reed, Declan, and Molly. Aiden was outside doing clean-up and damage control there, but that would likely include many phone conversations and updates as well. There’d already been way too many moving parts to this investigation, and now there were more.

Jemma made her way to him, snagging two fresh cups of coffee along the way, and she gulped down some of hers as if it would cure the throbbing headache that she no doubt had. It wouldn’t. Caffeine wasn’t going to help with an adrenaline crash from hell, but it could give them both a boost of jittery energy. Jittery was still better than brain fog.

“Duane obviously has an alibi for the shooting since he was here,” she volunteered. “FYI, he’s threatening to sue us.”

Yeah, Hayes had heard the asshole bark that out right after Jemma had given him the clearance to leave and return once he had his lawyer with him.

“Cordelia claims she was at the estate,” Jemma went on in between more sips of coffee. “And she’s on her way here to file a harassment complaint against me.” She sighed, shook her head. “Royce didn’t threaten me with anything, but he was clearly pissed when I asked him where he was at the time of the shooting.”

The anger didn’t surprise Hayes one bit. He had a bad gut feeling about Royce. Hell, about Cordelia and Duane, too, and Royce wouldn’t have cared much for Jemma doing her duty and treating him like the person of interest that he was.

“And Brooks?” he asked.

“He’s on his way here with his mama.” Her mouth tightened as if she’d tasted something extra bitter. “Interviewing them should be a barrel of laughs,” she added in a grumble.

The fatigue certainly wasn’t going to help with that, and while Hayes couldn’t fix that either, he thought Jemma could use a moment to try to level out. He motioned for her to follow him into the kitchen where all the windows had already been boarded up. If the sniper was still around, at least he wouldn’t be able to see them, and the kitchen had the extra bonus of being unoccupied.

“You’re going to tell me to take a breather,” Jemma said on a sigh. “That I need some rest.”

“I probably will get around to saying that,” Hayes admitted. He took her coffee and set it on the counter along with his. “For now, do that Christmas carol thing you did in the escape room.”

Jemma looked at him as if he’d sprouted an extra nose, and then he saw the realization of what he meant dawn on her. He maybe saw some embarrassment, too.

“It’sJingle Bells,” she muttered. “The Batman smells version.”

“That’s the one. You said it under your breath when you were getting a little panicked because the timer had gone off, and we hadn’t found our way out yet, and no one had come to get us.”

She nodded, continued to stare at him. Shrugged. Muttered something he didn’t catch. “It’s just something I’ve done since I was a kid.”

“Do it now,” he advised. “See if it works.”

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